Small Ways To Help The Syrians

. . . We must take action to address the refugee crisis, both because it is humane and moral, and because we either pay now or pay much more later. Abandoned, unemployed, and increasingly desperate youth, seeking any sense of community, are easy targets for ISIS and other terrorist organizations.

In 2010, I traveled in Syria with my family and was there again when the conflict began in 2011, when “only” 26 people had been killed in Daraa. I spent time in markets in Damascus and Aleppo that now no longer exist, as well as the now destroyed archeological ruins in Palmyra. Many of the people I met and visited with have either been killed or are now refugees. The numbers are staggering. More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed since the conflict began. Syrians now represent the largest refugee population in the world. 4 million have left the country and 8 million are internally displaced, a total of over half the pre-war population of the country. Neighboring countries are overwhelmed. Syrian refugees now represent almost a third of Lebanon’s and a quarter of Jordan’s populations. In contrast, the US has admitted fewer than 1,000 Syrian refugees.

This year, spending time in the Syrian refugee communities of Turkey and Jordan, the most common question I hear from refugees is “Why do they hate us?”, referring to a feeling of being completely abandoned and forgotten by the world. I provide the very unsatisfactory answer that the situation is complex and people don’t know exactly what to do, so feel paralyzed and do nothing, but that there are people who care and are trying to help.

There but for the grace of God — and how ironic that so much of this misery and mayhem comes in the name of God* — go we.

*”I have caused great calamities,” Queen Isabella declared five centuries before ISIS began its atrocities. “I have depopulated provinces and kingdoms. But I did it for the love of Christ and his Holy Mother.”